S P E C I A L - N O T I C E S . . .

MARIZELA PEREZ IS STILL MISSING: For the latest news on the search for this young lady, please visit the special website that has been set-up: FindMarizela.com. Her cousin, Michelle Malkin has more pictures of her here.
______________________________________________________________
For The Latest News on the KIMBERLIN / RAUHAUSER SAGA: Follow John Hoge's blog HOGEWASH. He's doing one huckuva job covering the story.
______________________________________________________________RING-A-DING-DING! & DOOBY-DOOBY-DOO! -In honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Albert Sinatra [born 12-DEC-1915], Friend In The Ether Pundette has set up a website, SINATRA CENTENARY, where she'll be celebrating for all of 2015. And Mark Steyn is doing his own list: Sinatra Song of the Century.

…if it has to be a Dem in 2016 it should be Biden not Hillary

If there had to be a Democratic president elected in 2008 and, after Lehman Brothers, it did not matter who was heading the ticket there would have been a Democrat elected, then in sad retrospect both America and the Dem’s would have been far better off it Joe Biden had been the presidential nominee.

The Dem’s would have been better off in that, without the rise of the Tea Party and the great swarming of the polls b​y​ conservatives in​ the​ subsequent mid-term elections, their electoral disasters of the past 6 years would have, most likely, not been as severe. “since 2008, Democrats have lost 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, 910 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and 11 governors’ offices.”

That electoral thrashing has certainly been good for the GOP and has, thankfully, put a stop to the leftist legislative program but Democrat’s can hardly look at it with thanks to their leadership. Would such decimation have happened under a Biden presidency without the “them and us” that the Obama administration has engendered-it’s unlikely given political history of ebb and flow levels​.​

​​Can anyone, if they put aside partisanship, honestly state that race relations would not be better now if Biden were president? Would the heightened expectations from the ridiculous promises of “change you can believe in​”​ from “The One” have been raised​,​ and dashed​,​ along with “my bills will be paid once Obama is elected.”​?​

Would there have been the Harvard professor incident and ensuing need for “a beer summit.”​?​ Would there have been the stirring up of racial tensions after Zimmerman if President Biden wasn’t in a position to say “If I had a son” etc. Would Eric Holder be Attorney ​G​eneral with the ensuing tensions in Ferguson?

Would “the first Black vice-president” have given the Black community pride in the accomplishment​,​
and hope for an eventual Black president​,​ without all the false promises and expectations? Certainly such a situation is imaginable.

With Biden cast more in the traditional Democrat ​m​old of an LBJ and willing to glad-hand the opposition​,​ would there have been so many years of antagonism between the Republican House and the presidency? Obviously not. Would the “Obamacare” legislation, categorized by Biden as a “BFD” have ever seen the light of day-at least in its present form? Probably not, and whatever healthcare reforms were actioned would have been done in the traditional give and take manner.

Would President Biden have seen himself as the savior of the Arab world and initiated the “Arab Spring’ which has turned into a disaster with vast swathes of territory controlled by the most militant anti-Western elements of radical Islam? A doubtful proposition given that Biden, unlike the neophyte Obama had years of foreign policy experience.

Would the national mood be lighter with a genial president, cast in that effect, in the mold of President Reagan? Certainly anything would be better than the current mood which has seen the president averaging under 45% approval for years and with Congress under 30% approval.

Whatever may be said of Biden’s faults as a communicator he is no worse tha​n​, frankly​,​ President Eisenhower was. Obama, Nixon, LBJ were great speakers but in the end were flawed and/or fell far short of the expectations their rhetoric gave rise to. With a government of checks and balances the nation is better served with a president with warmth of personality who is not a great communicator​,​
than with a dogmatic, brooding and flawed one.

Biden is also a gentleman. Seemingly alone amongst the left he has been only polite and warm towards Governor Palin whilst all around him were doing their best to tear her down by any means fair or foul-another indication of how a Biden administration would have governed in a spirit of amiability.

Oddly enough the country, or at least the Democrats​,​ may shortly be be faced with the same sort of choice again. If Hillary Clinton runs​,​ and Vice-President Biden does as well then​,​ the choice will be between a polarizing dogmatic ​ on one hand​ and a personable compromiser on the other​.

It would seem unlikely at this point that the same mistake that was made in 2008 would not be made all over again given Clinton’s ​current (albeit shaky looking​) ascendancy. Hillary might well be the winner​,​ but America would be the loser.

The choice between four more years of antagonistic government under a Clinton or four of a reaching across the aisle administration​ (if there had to be a Democrat) under Biden is​,​ logically​,​ for the latter. For America’s sake hopefully the choice doesn’t eventuate as a Republican president will be elected but, again, if it has to be a Dem then America could do far worse than Biden​.

Flavius: Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
Is this a pants-suit-day? What! know you not,
Being mechanical, low of information, you ought not walk
Upon a non-labouring day without the sign
Of your slavery?….

Ring-A-Ding-Ding, everybody!

Here at TCOTS, we’re celebrating Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday by counting down what I think are his 100 best performances on Vinyl and CD. All of the songs on the List have been released on either one or both mediums. Interspersed with the countdown will be Honorable Mentions that didn’t make the List and a countdown of what I think are his best albums.

Francis Albert will be your pilot and Bobby Bell your navigator.

So sit back easy in your easy chair, fasten your seatbelts, and let’s take-off in the blue…

76 — TIE: Moonlight In Vermont – Two Versions

Music & Lyrics: Karl Suessdorf, John BlackburnVersion I...
-Recorded: 01 April 1959
-From the album Live In AustraliaVersion II:
-Recorded: 03 October 1957
-From the album Come Fly With Me

I just can’t decide between the Nelson Riddle arrangement and the one Frank and The Red Norvo Quintet used on their 1959 gig in Australia. The approaches are different enough to distinguish them, but close enough to make it damn tough for me to choose between the two, so I’m declaring this a TIE.

Sadly, I’ve been unable to find an audio clip of Moonlight In Vermont from the Australian gig [and the CD has gone out of print, but is available here and there on the Internet (get it!)]. This version of the song from Frank’s 1962 world tour with a sextet is close to the ’59 arrangement, so it will have to do here [recorded 07 June]:
And here’s the Come Fly With Me performance in glorious Mono [which is the best mix, IMO]…

75 — I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm

Music & Lyrics: Irving Berlin
Recorded: 21 December 1960
From the album Ring-A-Ding-Ding

Frank captures near-perfectly what it feels like to be in love, what it’s like to have the right partner of the opposite sex to weather all of Life’s storms.

74 — The Birth Of The Blues

Music & Lyrics: Lew Brown, Buddy DeSylva, Ray Henderson
Recorded: 03 June 1952
Released as a Single; included in many Columbia Legacy compilation albums such as Best Of Columbia Years 1943-52

He nursed it, then he rehearsed it, and then sent out that news: that Frank Sinatra knows The Blues.

One of the first Sinatra songs I fell in love with…

BONUS — Moonlight In Vermont

Recorded: 05 June 1966
From the TV Special A Man And His Music II

This is the best performance of the song using Nelson Riddle’s Billy May’s arrangement [thanks to Mark Steyn for pointing out my error], but it could not make the List because it has never been issued on vinyl or CD…
See you next Friday as we head-off again to Bobsville.

Now that he’s closing schools on two Muslim holidays, Mayor de Blasio is being pressured to keep his word and add the Lunar New Year to the list.

Eighteen legislators sent a letter to Hizzoner Monday urging him to include the celebration as a day off on the school calendar.

The Lunar New Year, which is celebrated by Asians worldwide, fell during the scheduled school winter recess this year.

But next year it lands on a school day — Feb. 8 — forcing students who celebrate it to take an excused day off.

“We commend you again for fulfilling your pledge to add Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha . . . It is critical that you also keep your pledge to designate Lunar New Year as a school holiday,” said the letter, signed by the entire New York City congressional delegation led by Grace Meng (D-Queens) and others.

De Blasio promised last year to include the Lunar New Year and said last week he plans on making that happen.

Speaking from the Dark Side Of The Moon, er, her Office, Lunatic In The Grass, er, Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina has vowed that these new ‘holidays’ will not result in the cutting back on the number of school days, I think it a very safe bet that time in the classrooms of the Big Apple will be allotted to propagandizing, er, teaching NYC students about the history and ‘cultural significance’ of these ‘Holy’ Muslim Days.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter that it will happen. I mean, it’s not as if New York City school kids are learning those things that used to be considered necessary and useful anyways.

The foul pit that is our Public School System just keeps getting bigger and deeper, like an expanding sinkhole. It’s sad that our children — our Posterity — are going to be sucked down into it’s dank recesses [pun intended], but, hey, the Road To Utopia is a rough one and some chick eggs are going to have to be broken, eh?

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.

Just to update: I’m getting better, but now I’m losing my voice because of coughing-up all the crap that’s been lurking in my sinuses, like a sniveling Leftist toady [notice, by the way, how that Mucinex Mucus Guy is green].

This constant coughing has deprived my brain of much oxygen, so I’ll be holding off posting anything serious for another day or so [all I can say is: thank the Good Lord for spellcheck — you wouldn’t believe how many this simple post contained].

Ring-A-Ding-Ding, everybody!

Here at TCOTS, we’re celebrating Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday by counting down what I think are his 100 best performances on Vinyl and CD. All of the songs on the List have been released on either one or both mediums. Interspersed with the countdown will be Honorable Mentions that didn’t make the List and a countdown of what I think are his best albums.

Francis Albert will be your pilot and Bobby Bell your navigator.

So sit back easy in your easy chair, fasten your seatbelts, and let’s take-off in the blue…

79 — All The Way

Music & Lyrics: Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen
Recorded: 13 August 1957
Released as a Single; included in the compilation albums All The Way, The Complete Capitol Singles Collection, and The Capital Years [this last collection has the best remastering]

Sammy Cahn explains, perhaps, the main reason this song, written for the movie The Joker Is Wild, works:

Sammy Cahn: When he sings, [sings] ‘It’s such a lovely day,’ he makes the word ‘lovely’ sound lovely. Ninety-nine singers out of 100 wouldn’t sing it that way. [Sings] ‘When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless he loves you…‘ The word ‘love.’ He gives the words their full meaning. And that’s why he’s Sinatra.”

In a number of the remasterings of this performance, too much remixing and ‘enhancing’ was added to it [the reverb/echo that was added, Frankly, stinks]. This is the least tampered-with version I could find on YouTube…
The best version is to be found on The Capital Years three CD collection [which, by the way, is the best introduction to Frank’s Capital Years recordings].

78 — All Of Me

Music & Lyrics: Seymour Simons, Gerald Marks
Recorded: 19 April 1954
From the album Swing Easy

Francis recorded this song a number of times, but in this performance I think he swings it best.

Ahh…Kismet, baby: In the past several weeks, Pundette and Mark Steyn have both put this one on their Sinatra 100 Lists. And, now: moi. —’Great minds…’ and all that Jazz.

I really can’t add anything to what Jill and Mark have written about this performance, so I highly recommend you all read their posts for the all the dish, but let me provide a few tastes of what they have on offer at their joints…

The way Sinatra re-accents the second half of the song – “Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry” – against the drums and the brass thrilled me the first time I heard it, and has never ceased to thrill over the years.

It’s a thriller and a killer.

77 — I’ll Never Smile Again

Music & Lyrics: Ruth Lowe
Recorded: 23 May 1940
Released as a 78 rpm Single; included in many compilation albums, the best, perhaps, being The Essential Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey And His Orchestra, remastered by Charles Granata

Recorded by Tommy Dorsey And His Orchestra, with Frank and The Pied Pipers providing vocals, this performance was Francis Albert’s first big hit, staying at Number One on the charts for twelve weeks.

Funny how this sad song always leaves me with a smile on my face.
See you next Friday as we head-off again to Bobsville.

HEY!…How’s Your Bird?

Here at TCOTS, we’re celebrating Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday by counting down what I think are his 100 best performances on Vinyl and CD, but, as promised, we’re also celebrating those tracks [‘Honorable Mentions’] that just didn’t make the List.

As with the 100 Best, Francis Albert will be your pilot and Bobby Bell your navigator.

So sit back easy in your easy chair, pour yourself your favorite libation, and let’s go for an aural ride to the stars…

HM01 — Hidden Persuasion

Music & Lyrics: Wainwright Churchill III
Recorded: 31 August 1960
Released as a Single; included in the compilation album The Complete Capitol Singles Collection

Frank was known for finger-snapping along with a tune when the mood swung him. This one may be the ultimate Sinatra Snapping track. I can understand why — it’s so damn infectious.

HM02 — East Of The Sun (And West Of The Moon)

Music & Lyrics: Brooks Bowman
Recorded: 03 May 1961
From the album I Remember Tommy

A celebration of Love, East Of The Sun captures the joy of being in love, and no one could communicate that better than Francis Albert Sinatra. Sy Oliver’s arrangement is him at his best, this master Arranger doing what made him one of the greatest at his Art.

HM03 — It Started All Over Again

Music & Lyrics: Carl Fischer, Bill Carey
Recorded: 03 May 1961
From the album I Remember Tommy

And, when you hear this for the first time, you get the urge to hear it all over again…and again.

HM04 — Don’t Cry Joe

Music & Lyrics: Al Piantados, Joe Marsala
Recorded: 23 May 1961
From the album Swing Along with Me (Sinatra Swings)

I just finally discovered the joys of this one while listening to Swing Along With Me all the way through for the first time in years. Man…it’s a thriller.
See you next time when we’ll take another short helicopter-hop to Bobsville.

Ring-A-Ding-Ding, everybody!

Here at TCOTS, we’re celebrating Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday by counting down what I think are his 100 best performances on Vinyl and CD. All of the songs on the List have been released on either one or both mediums. Interspersed with the countdown will be Honorable Mentions that didn’t make the List and a countdown of what I think are his best albums.

Francis Albert will be your pilot and Bobby Bell your navigator.

So sit back easy in your easy chair, fasten your seatbelts, and let’s take off in the blue…

82 — Just In Time

Music & Lyrics: Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne
Recorded: 09 December 1958
From the album Come Dance With Me

Those of us who didn’t find true love until middle age can relate to this one. ‘Nowhere to go’ became ‘I found my way’…just in time. Billy May’s arrangement sparkles like the Fourth Of July.

81 — Just One Of Those Things

Music & Lyrics: Cole Porter
Recorded: 07 April 1954
From the album Swing Easy

The first song off of Sinatra’s second album for Capital, this tune sets the concept/mood for the rest of the record. The love affair is over and it’s time to pine away. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrist-slicing time — you can be down, but still swing it eaaasy in your easy chair. When first released on it’s own, Swing Easy contained only eight songs because it appeared on the original type of LP: the ten inch 33¹/³, but lack of space didn’t prevent Francis Albert from expertly creating a coherent and whole living atmosphere. A great deal of his success here is due to his decision to make this lively tune the kick-off song. Goodbye, goodbye, so long, and amen, indeed, baby.

80 — It’s Nice To Go Trav’ling

Music & Lyrics: Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen
Recorded: 08 October 1957
From the album Come Fly With Me

Cahn and Van Heusen wrote this specially to be the last song on the Come Fly With Me album and it’s a nice touch after the whirlwind time we’ve just had going around the world, partying and romancing. Frank perfectly captures that feeling many of us get as we head home from vacation: ‘It’s very nice to go trav’ling but it’s oh, so nice to come home’. I believe he also contributed the last set of lyrics which are spoken:

No more Customs… Burn the passport… No more packin’… And unpackin’… Light the home fires… Get my slippers… Make a pizza….

I dedicate this one to Mark Steyn, who is always, it seems, on the road somewhere creating mischief and upsetting the ‘Beautiful People’…
See you next Friday as we head-off again to Bobsville.

Posted on social media accounts affiliated with the Islamic State, the footage shows several large statues inside a museum in the northern city of Mosul being toppled and shattered to pieces.

A group of bearded men can be seen bashing the cherished antiquities with sledgehammers before they move on to a nearby archaeological site.

“Oh Muslims, these artifacts that are behind me were idols and gods worshiped by people who lived centuries ago instead of Allah,” a bearded man tells the camera as he stands in front of the pulverized remains of a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity dating back to the 7th century BC.

“The so-called Assyrians and Akkadians and others looked to gods for war, agriculture and rain to whom they offered sacrifices,” he adds, describing groups that had lived in Mesopotamia — what is now Iraq, eastern Syria and southern Turkey — for more than 5,000 years.

“Our Prophet ordered us to remove all these statues as his followers did when they conquered nations,” the man concludes.

Some of the ISIS savages can even be seen using jackhammers and power tools to brazenly chip away at the cherished antiquities.

The five-minute video depicted the logo of the Islamic State and was posted on a Twitter account used by the terror group.

The Mosul Museum housed extensive art collections which covered the entire range of civilization in the region, including sculptures from royal cities in northern Iraq such as Nimrud, Nineveh, and Hatra, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Met — which also displays ancient and Islamic relics from the Middle East — strongly condemned the ISIS video on Thursday, calling it an “act of catastrophic destruction to one of the most important museums in the Middle East.”

“This mindless attack on great art, on history, and on human understanding constitutes a tragic assault not only on the Mosul Museum, but on our universal commitment to use art to unite people and promote human understanding,” a statement read. “Such wanton brutality must stop, before all vestiges of the ancient world are obliterated.”

Mosul’s surrounding province of Nineveh was recently overrun by ISIS savages after Iraqi security forces crumbled during a blitz last June. The region is home to nearly 1,800 of Iraq’s 12,000 registered archaeological sites.

Islamic State militants currently control four ancient cities across Iraq — Ninevah, Kalhu, Dur Sharrukin and Ashur — which were at different times the capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire.

The demolition of artifacts comes as ISIS continues to target a number of shrines, including Muslim holy sites, as they eradicate what they believe is heresy. They have also reportedly sold a number of ancient artifacts on the black market in order to finance their campaign.

Before any of us can serve in the United States Senate, we stand in the well of the Senate chamber and publicly take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. I know we all take that seriously, as we should. This is not just another government document. It is really the inspiration of this government and it still governs our actions to this day.

Yet, if we view this document with honesty, we know that it was fatally flawed from the start. It got the issue of slavery wrong, in addition to some other issues. It got the issue of race wrong. And since the days when the document was drafted and signed, we have struggled as a nation to right that wrong. It has taken a long, long time.

Frankly, right now, I’d like to see this Senator up against the Senate Wall with my fists attempting to correct his fatal flaws.

People like Dick Durbin hold Power And Control in this country and face no serious opposition from anyone, especially from the fatally-collegial Republicans [aka: ‘The Badly Hair-Sprayed Morons’].

It is the mission of the Dicks of this world to see that we True Americans are, not simply silenced, but disgraced and delegitimized in the eyes of the majority of people residing in this country — and they are succeeding.

The motives of conservatives are always questioned because they are always doubted, always suspect, always believed to arise from Evil motivations, so successful has the Left In America been in demonizing what was once, in a saner world, considered and known to be Normal Thinking.

In 2015 in America, up is down, Good is seen as Evil, the world is turned upside down.

We are the criminals. We are always Guilty.

As the old saying goes: ‘The Freest Man in the world is the Man who has nothing to lose’, therefore…

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.

You hear a lot of people in America say that when stories about the decline of Western Society in Europe are mentioned.

Believing that America is so unique is wrong and ultimately contributes to our own Society’s decline.

Yes, America the idea, it’s Constitution, it’s attitude are exceptional, but we must never forget that it is populated by Human Beings and we are like all Human Beings across the breath and depth of the Earth: we are fallen creatures. So, despite our unique attitude, our unique approach to Life, we are still
susceptible to the Human failings, which means we can end-up making the same mistakes as the Europeans.

It is true that our exceptionality will shield us longer from the rot that has metastasized to every corner of Europe, but, eventually, the shield will shatter into a thousand pieces under the strain, especially because we have not performed routine maintenance on it, so busy are we being Willfully Blind and losing ourselves in our decadent frivolities and Soul-deadening luxuries.

The United States Of America was exceptional, but it’s people were always just Human.

While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence.

But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion.

Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

—John Adams, Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade
of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts,
11 October 1798

Another entry in a Diary that chronicles the End Days of The American Republic. Another example of why The Republic is terminal and why we must work to save what we can however we can…

Stacy McCain provides this quote by one of The West’s most upstanding modern citizens [Stacy has the video]:

I am a non-binary so that means I don’t identify as male or female and I am pansexual which means I am attracted to all genders. I grew up in the current sex-ed curriculum in a Catholic school environment that was very limited in terms of talking about any relations that were outside of marital cisgender heterosexual intercourse.

Such disturbed people have been legitimized by those who are in charge of the governments of The West. While this deranged woman is Canadian, there are plenty of people in America [notice I don’t say ‘Americans’] who think like this, as Stacy McCain has chronicled exhaustively over the past several years at his great site: The Other McCain.

Mentally ill people like this are praised and elevated to Normalcy in this country, while those of us who are the exact opposite, who do not deny Reality and who are Moral, are declared Perverse and Evil in our thinking.

We are branded as Extremists and kooks. We have been declared by those in Power And Control to be outside the pale. They want the ignorant and the disturbed to harass and attack us.

We are the New Freaks, in their eyes, which means…

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.

Another entry in a Diary that chronicles the End Days of The American Republic. Another example of why The Republic is terminal and why we must work to save what we can however we can…

From Investor’s Business Daily, Paul Sperry reporting, we learn [worth quoting in full]:

France, Belgium and now even liberal Denmark regret letting in so many immigrants from Muslim countries. Their swelling Islamic communities have become breeding grounds for terrorists. So why is the U.S. opening the floodgates to foreign Muslims?

The threat Muslim immigrants pose to homeland security was not addressed during the White House’s three-day summit on terrorism.

Instead, Vice President Joe Biden assured Muslim groups gathered during one session that the “wave” of Muslim immigration is “not going to stop.”

Wave? More like a tsunami.

Between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration imported almost 300,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations — more immigrants than the U.S. let in from Central America and Mexico combined over that period.

This is a sea change in immigration flows, and it threatens national security.

Many of the recent Muslim immigrants are from terrorist hot spots like Iraq, where the Islamic State operates. From 2010-2013, Obama ushered in 41,094 Iraqi nationals from there.

Now the State Department says it will quadruple the number of refugees brought here from Syria, where IS is headquartered.

The U.S. will admit as many as 2,000 Syrian nationals by the end of fiscal year 2015, up from 525 since fiscal 2011.

Yes, the number of displaced people inside war-torn Syria and Iraq, an estimated 3 million refugees, rivals the most in Mideast history. But rolling out the welcome mat for them in the middle of a mushrooming war on Muslim terrorism is dangerously shortsighted.

Top U.S. counterterror officials say terrorists could easily slip into the country from Iraq and Syria, in spite of promised screening procedures for such refugees.

“It’s clearly a population of concern,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen testified this week.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul called the new policy “a federally sanctioned welcome party to potential terrorists.”

That’s no stretch. If just a fraction of the 300,000 new Muslim immigrants already here follow in the footsteps of the Franco-Algerian brothers who recently terrorized Paris, we could be facing chronic terror in our cities.

The main homeland threat from groups like IS comes through our immigration system. If they also use our loose policies as a vehicle for jihad and Islamization, we will face the same crisis as Eurabia.

The British press is reporting that IS has threatened to release a huge wave of migrants from Libya across the Mediterranean disguised as refugees to cause chaos in Europe.

Who’s to say they aren’t setting a similar immigration bomb for America?

Authorities can’t even get a handle on homegrown IS jihadists who are already in America. Why would we risk adding so many potential jihadists from abroad to the already overloaded terrorist threat matrix?

The FBI director says he’s got open cases against IS suspects in every state but Alaska. More than 100 American Muslims have hooked up with the vicious terror group in Syria or Iraq, and at least a dozen fighters already have returned to America and may be forming sleeper cells to attack the homeland.

These suspects are hard for agents, who already are overstretched, to monitor. They’ve discarded their Islamic beards and garb and have blended into society. Analysts suspect some may have even infiltrated the military and government.

While America ushers in Islamic immigrants, Europe is pulling up the welcome mat. In recent months, both France and Britain have proposed imposing curbs on immigration out of fear of importing more terrorists. The bills will likely pass in the wake of the Paris massacre.

Thanks to mass immigration from North Africa, France’s Muslim population has swelled to 6.5 million, or 10% of its population. More than 1,000 French Muslims have joined IS. A recent poll found that 27% of French Muslims ages 18-24 support the Islamic State.

Growing pockets of radicalism are spreading in towns throughout France. There are “no-go” zones for non-Muslims and even local authorities, not just in Paris but all over the country.

Authorities say that they’ve lost control of the situation. Muslim attacks on police and synagogues are now regular events.

Similar problems are cropping up in Germany. After an influx of Syrian and other Muslim immigrants, a recent poll found that 40% of Germans say they don’t feel at home in their own country thanks to “Islamization.”

America will no doubt suffer the same nightmares if its Muslim population is allowed to reach a critical mass.

At current immigration rates, and barring a much-needed moratorium, our Muslim population will more than double over the next 15 years, hitting about 6.2 million in 2030, according to a recent Pew Research Center study — “in large part because of immigration and higher-than-average fertility among Muslims.”

Fifteen years from now, Pew found, America will “have a larger number of Muslims than any European country” except for France and Russia.

If you think this huge influx of foreign Muslims will assimilate and adopt Western values, you haven’t been to Alexandria, Va., or Dearborn, Mich., or Minneapolis recently.

They resemble little Cairos, with their Arabic store signage, halal butchers, hookah bars and even blaring calls to prayer from mosque minarets. Such cultural diversity might be quaint if not for the fact these heavily Muslim immigrant enclaves are also breeding grounds for terrorism. More people from Dearborn are on the federal terrorist watch list than from any other American city except New York.

Recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen by Muslims operating with support from those cities’ swelling Muslim immigrant communities are an ugly reminder that Muslim immigration doesn’t bring the kind of diversity once cherished in the West. It leads to violence and Islamization.

All this raises serious national security concerns. But the White House is too busy defending Islam and portraying the Muslim community as victims of “discrimination” to consider them.

Any nation whose government allows this to happen is a nation that wants to die.

This, however, is an assisted suicide: helping the process along are the Left, the GOP, Libertarians, and the Chamber Of Commerce — Traitors all, who join ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ in not loving America [yeah, I said it].

We are abandoned.

We are on our own.

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.

The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week. On Thursday the three Democrats among the five commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission will vote to regulate the Internet under rules written for monopoly utilities.

No one, including the bullied FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, thought the agency would go this far. The big politicization came when President Obama in November demanded that the supposedly independent FCC apply the agency’s most extreme regulation to the Internet. A recent page-one Wall Street Journal story headlined “Net Neutrality: How White House Thwarted FCC Chief” documented “an unusual, secretive effort inside the White House . . . acting as a parallel version of the FCC itself.”…

The more than 300 pages of new regulations are secret, but Mr. Wheeler says they will subject the Internet to the key provisions of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, under which the FCC oversaw Ma Bell.

The specifics of the grab don’t matter as much as the direction in which things must inevitably move. Regulation is an absorbing state like the Hotel California. You can try to check out any time you like, but once inside you can never really leave. Three hundred pages of regulation will become 301 … 302 … A new administration might slow down the rate of growth, but it can never reverse it.

The very success of the Internet doomed its independence. Like any rich, glittering center of wealth that springs up in the desert sands, it would inevitably be coveted by nearby chieftains. And if there’s anything this administration — and to a lesser extent any administration — hankers after it is power. So a-raiding they will go. So here is prince Barack, at the tech city gates, demanding the keys….

Perhaps it’s time for all of us to purchase Ham Radios. Or familiarize ourselves with the Darknet. Given the large area we are spread across, it is imperative that we keep lines of communication open.

Things along the lines of Committees Of Correspondence and Samizdats are vital things to create if we are to have a chance of preserving the idea of America.

These new regulations [ie: ‘laws’ for all intents and purposes] are designed to control and isolate us. They seek to further enslave us. Our backs are against the wall and the Enemy is loading it’s weapons of Mass Liberty Destruction.

Perhaps it is time to start Going Underground.

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.

Before I went to bed last night, I was flipping around channels on television when I came to a Fox News program on the 2016 Presidential Race.

This one concerned itself with the Democratic field and I caught a few minutes of an interview with former Senator Jim Webb. I listened to him for several minutes – this supposed ‘Old School Democrat’ / ‘Jacksonian’ – and then clicked over to look at the latest weather radar.

I came back to the program a few minutes later and host Bret Baier was having a discussion with A.B. Stoddard, Stephen Hayes, and Charles Krauthammer.

As I sat there listening both times, I quickly found myself hearing their words and realizing that they all were participants in an effort – deep-down likely desperate in nature – to keep the structure of a grand fantasy propped-up. An all-consuming effort to preserve a charming and comforting dream-scape.

I’m not speaking of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Race, but of the whole rose-colored charade that overlays the Reality of what America truly is in 2015.

I felt as though I was watching people engaged in a child’s Pretend Game. Then, I knew, I was.

This is the thought that has been building inside of me for quite some time, but, until last Evening, had remained indescribable, an upsetting and disquieting set of feelings that I could not put my finger on and could not avoid.

Now, these feelings that had so troubled my Soul coalesced: the vast, vast majority of people in America spend every moment of every day kidding themselves that things will pretty much go along here as they always have. Sure, there will be ups and downs – and some of the downs may be pretty awful like, say World War II – but it will all work out in the end. The United States Of America, all fifty states of it, will endure.

Except for a very few, the people of America are engaging in an act of Mass Willful Blindness.

These are the times when we expect people to arise who refuse to wear the Blinders Of Avoidance and band together to preserve what can be preserved that is Good, despite the self-inflicted ignorance of most. Sadly, the majority of people who normally would rise to the occasion are they themselves engaging in acts of Willful Blindness – not as completely, but they always seem hesitant to take that one, last step into full awareness of the actual situation.

We few who are not so self-blinded are on our own because I cannot foresee those others just mentioned opening up their eyes in time.

The national government is so diseased with the cancer of Leftism that it cannot be saved. Time to retreat from it and regroup and take over some portion of this country.

We, the Sighted, The Remnant, must gather together and work to preserve what we can of that Sacred Gift given to use by The Founding Fathers and The Creator.

We must Join Or Die.

We must Join or the Idea Of America will die an ignominious death clasped in the chains of Evil.

Ring-A-Ding-Ding, everybody!

Here at TCOTS, we’re celebrating Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday by counting down what I think are his 100 best performances on Vinyl and CD. All of the songs on the List have been released on either one or both mediums. Interspersed with the countdown will be Honorable Mentions that didn’t make the List and a countdown of what I think are his best albums.

Francis Albert will be your pilot and Bobby Bell your navigator.

So sit back easy in your easy chair, fasten your seatbelts, and let’s take off in the blue…

85 — Ol’ MacDonald

Music & Lyrics: Traditional with new lyrics by Lew Spence, Marilyn and Alan Bergman
Recorded: 01 September 1960
Released as a Single; included in the compilation albums All The Way and The Complete Capitol Singles Collection

My kind of nursery rhyme! This is the way to do it, all there is to it. Frank and the band are having a ball — and so will you…

84 — That’s Life

Music & Lyrics: Dean Kay, Kelly Gordon
Recorded: 18 October 1966
From the album That’s Life

Frank knows. Frank knows about Life. Been there, he’s done that — he’s done it all — and he gonna take you by the hand and tell you all about it. Braggadocio in spades, but Frank can back it all up with witnesses…

83 — Oh! Look At Me Now

Music & Lyrics: Joe Bushkin, John De Vries
Recorded: 28 November 1956
From the album A Swingin’ Affair

Frank recorded this tune twice in his career and this is the lesser version. Don’t get me wrong: it’s got to be damn good to have made the Top 100 out of 1,400-plus possible Sinatra recordings, but it doesn’t work as well as the other, which will be swingin’ lightly-on down this here lane a little later on. FYI: This is the version of the song I chose to do the dance with my Mother at my Wedding, so that tells you exactly how good I think this recording is. My first exposure to Francis Albert I owe to my parents, especially, my Mater, who is an old bobby-soxer.
See you next Friday as we head-off again to Bobsville.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: We in the administration and the government should give voice to the plight of Muslims living in this country and the discrimination that they face. And so I personally have committed to speak out about the situation that very often people in the Muslim community in this country face. The fact that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and the Islamic faith is one about peace and brotherhood.

It’s utter fools like this that will get many of us murdered, as it has already gotten multitudes in other countries murdered.

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.*

Another entry in a Diary that chronicles the End Days of The American Republic. Another example of why The Republic is terminal and why we must work to save what we can however we can…

From the Daily Bruin [UCLA], By Rachel Frenklak reporting, we learn [tip of the fedora to Darleen Click]:

Last week, I attended acouncil meeting to support my roommate, sorority sister and best friend, Rachel Beyda, as she went through the last step of being confirmed by the council as an appointed justice to the Judicial Board of the Undergraduate Students Association Council. I greatly admire Rachel’s academic success and the passion and determination she has demonstrated toward her goal of becoming a lawyer. I have seen her accrue immense leadership skills and experience in the legal field, both at UCLA, as the current law clerk for the Judicial Board and beyond. Therefore, as I ascended the stairs to Kerckhoff 417, I incorrectly assumed the confirmation of Rachel’s appointment would be quick and simple.

Rachel had been unanimously approved by the Appointments Review Committee consisting of three council members before she flawlessly introduced herself to the council. However, the first question directed at her by General Representative 3 Fabienne Roth was an attack on Rachel’s ability to be a justice based on her involvement in the Jewish community. At President Avinoam Baral’s insistence, the question was phrased slightly more considerately by Transfer Student Representative Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, but this first question set the tone. Rachel finished the interview, making two important points: first, anyone qualified for the position would be a critical thinker who is knowledgeable about campus issues and therefore, has his or her own opinions and second, she has no significant political affiliations. Furthermore, she demonstrated an understanding of what actually having a conflict of interest means and acknowledged thata justice should remove herself from the decision-making process under those circumstances. Rachel was asked to leave the room for council discussion. What followed was a disgusting 40 minutes of what can only be described as unequivocal anti-Semitism during which some of our council members resorted to some of the oldest accusations against Jews, including divided loyalties and dishonesty.

All council members swiftly agreed Rachel was amply qualified for the position, but half of the council had strong reservations stemming from Rachel’s Jewish identity. “My issue is, I’m going to be upfront about it, I think she’s pretty great. She’s smart, she like knows her stuff, she’s like probably going to be a really great lawyer. But I’m like not going to pretend this isn’t about conflict of interest. … It’s not her fault … but she’s part of a community that’s very invested in USAC. … Even if she’s the right person for the job,” claimed Roth. Sadeghi-Movahed added, “For some reason, I’m not 100 percent comfortable. I don’t know why. I’ll go through her application again. I’ve been going through it constantly, but I definitely can see that she’s qualified for sure.” Throughout this discussion, Rachel anxiously paced outside, where, she later informed me, she could hear “conflict of interest” being yelled and concluded that it could only be about her being Jewish. Undoubtedly, the Israeli-Palestinan conflict is one of the most contentious issues on our campus. However, Israel was not mentioned during the discussion of Rachel’s appointment, only her affiliation with Jewish organizations, making the extensive deliberation a definitive act of discrimination.

We have the freedom now to act to preserve The Founding; we are at Liberty to to operate in what has become the Enemy’s territory. We can gather together and Restore the Precious Gift of The Founding Fathers in territory we achieve control of. We are the Outlaws and we should act accordingly.

We will see some very cruel times, but we have a Duty to our Posterity to preserve the Gift wherever and however we can. We have a duty to those that came before us and sacrificed for us to pay any price and bear any burden to see that Freedom and Ordered Liberty survive in some form. If we do not at least try, we shall be damned before all of Mankind as those cowards who did not attempt to preserve the last, best hope for man on God’s Earth.*

We must Join Or Die.

_________________________________

*These two paragraphs are a slight rephrasing
of something I wrote the other day in this post.

Celebrating And Defending Western Civilization

The Official TCOTS Theme Song…

'Hold onto your gear and prepare yourselves. Register nothing. Resist them at every turn. Don’t cooperate. Refuse to compromise. Because it is coming. And if you don’t feel it, and prepare for it, more’s the pity.' -Jeff Goldstein
- - - - - -

'Why is it that the left are the only people in this country who can resist, who can obstruct, who can sabotage? I say we resist and where we can obstruct and where we can sabotage tyranny. What do you say?' -Mark Levin

A VOICE FIGHTING TYRANNY…

BOB BELVEDERE RECOMMENDS…

———Keeping The News Flowing…

Ron Devito, Proprietor / Josh Painter, Editor

Note from Bob regarding any ads featured on this site: I do not receive any monies or renumeration or considerations for featuring them; I promote them because I like what they have to offer.

Regarding Comments & Trackbacks…

-If you leave a comment and it disappears, chances are it got swept-up in my Spam Bucket. I will be checking my Spam Bucket every chance I get [Note: I will not be able to do this until late afternoon most days].

-WordPress Trackbacks are not always working either, so you may not know I linked to you.

-Your Trackbacks to me may not be registered on my Dashboard, so I may fail to send a 'Thank You' your way. Please do not be shy in letting me know if I've missed your linkage.